Newborns learn to identify a face in eight/tenths of a second?

Walton, Gail E.; Armstrong, Erika S.; Bower, T. G. R.

doi:10.1111/1467-7687.00016

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Third, infants' visual preferences are constrained by a number of factors, including age (Cohen & Gelber, 1975;Hunter & Ames, 1988), the frequency (Barrile, Armstrong, & Bower, 1999;Siqueland, 1969) and duration (Hunter & Ames, 1988) of exposure to a prior stimulus, the primacy of a prior stimulus exposure (Walton, Armstrong, & Bower, 1998), the incongruity, unexpectedness, or surprisingness of the test event (Baillargeon, 1993;Needham, Baillargeon, & Kaufman, 1997;Smock & Holt, 1962), the dif®culty of the task (Hopkins, Zelazo, Jacobson, & Kagan, 1976;Hunter & Ames, 1988), and a host of collative variables such as complexity and variability that affect stimulus salience (Berlyne, 1960;Hutt, 1970). To the preceding list, the present study adds that motivated infants often look longer at predictive stimuli.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual‐preference and operant measures of infant memory

Wilk

Klein

Rovee‐Collier

2001

Developmental Psychobiology

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In three experiments with sixty 3- and 6-month-olds, we examined whether operant and visual-preference measures of retention are equivalent. Infants learned to move a mobile by kicking and then received a paired-comparison test with the familiar (training) mobile and a novel one. Kicking above baseline was the direct measure of retention, and longer looking at the novel mobile was the visual-preference or inferred measure. Retention was tested 1 day after training (Experiment 1) or reactivation (Experiment 2) and immediately or 4 days after training (Experiment 3). Despite differences in age and retention interval, infants consistently exhibited retention on the operant measure, but not on the visual-preference measure. These data reveal that the two measures of retention are not equivalent. When expectations are associated with a particular stimulus, infants indicate retention directly and robustly, rarely looking longer at a novel test stimulus. This result is not limited to operant situations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual‐preference and operant measures of infant memory

Wilk

Klein

Rovee‐Collier

2001

Developmental Psychobiology

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“…Recently, Walton, Armstrong and Bower (1998) found that newborns were extremely susceptible to primacy with the first face in a list being greatly preferred over other faces in the list on presentations after the first one. It would appear that primacy and frequency can sum to affect preference.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There was one quite unexpected result that was obtained in both experiments: the finding that the familiar stimulus became even more preferred when it was the first presented stimulus. Recently, Walton, Armstrong and Bower (1998) found that newborns were extremely susceptible to primacy with the first face in a list being greatly preferred over other faces in the list on presentations after the first one. It would appear that primacy and frequency can sum to affect preference.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novelty and frequency as determinants of newborn preference

Barrile¹,

Armstrong²,

Bower³

1999

Developmental Science

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The debate over whether infants prefer a familiar stimulus over a novel stimulus has persisted for over 30 years, and there is evidence which supports both sides of the question. However, the research which supports the preference for the familiar uses different measures than that which supports the preference for novelty. In the first experiment, the preference for the familiar was tested by making one stimulus more familiar than the others presented. A target of à familiar' face was presented eight times more frequently than the other faces. During the experiment, the infants could choose at which face they looked and for how long. It was found that the infants significantly preferred the familiar face over any one of the novel faces, especially when the familiar face was presented first. Substituting auditory for visual stimuli, the second experiment was a replication of the first experiment. Consonant±vowel syllables were used instead of faces. Overall, 17 stimuli were used: one repeating`familiar' sound, and 16 novel sounds. It was found that the infants significantly preferred the familiar sound over any of the novel sounds. As found in Experiment 1, the infants also had a greater preference for the familiar sound when it was presented first.

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“…This study suggests that memory for the mother's face is established in a long-term store within a few days from birth. 1 Recognition memory abilities in newborns are present also in the case of strangers' real faces (Pascalis & de Schonen, 1994;Walton, Armstrong, & Bower, 1998;Walton, Bower, & Bower, 1992). Pascalis and de Schonen (1994) demonstrated that, after habituation with a photograph of a stranger's face, four-day-old infants looked longer at a new face than at the familiar one even after an interval of 2min.…”

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confidence: 99%

Newborns' local processing in schematic facelike configurations

Simion

Farroni

Cassia

et al. 2002

British J of Dev Psycho

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The goal of the study was to provide a direct comparison of newborns' ability to process and store, over a 2min delay, the shape of the internal local elements of schematic facelike and non-facelike patterns. Two experiments were carried out using a visual habituation technique with an infant control procedure. The results demonstrate that newborns discriminated between two schematic facelike and nonfacelike configurations that differed exclusively for the shape of the internal local elements (Expt 1), and they maintained this discriminative ability even when recognition was tested after a 2min retention interval (Expt 2). The results are consistent with the existence of a general pattern learning mechanism that mediates newborns' ability to acquire information about any pattern, including faces (de Schonen

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Newborns learn to identify a face in eight/tenths of a second?

Cited by 9 publications

References 15 publications

Visual‐preference and operant measures of infant memory

Visual‐preference and operant measures of infant memory

Novelty and frequency as determinants of newborn preference

Newborns' local processing in schematic facelike configurations

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